…well you know, we don’t need one.
Let me get his out of the way first. I could not possibly care less about who gets the Republican nomination for president. Doesn’t matter one iota to me, I ain’t voting for any of them. No way, no how. I do, however, care who gets the Democratic nomination. Very much. Much has been gained during the Obama administration, naysayers on the left notwithstanding, and much stands to be lost should Democrats nominate the wrong person. The wrong person is Bernie Sanders.

I suppose that by the time one is pushing 60 years of life on this thing we call Earth, one should find very little at which to be surprised. One would be wrong. I find myself surprised at the intelligent, pragmatic, and otherwise generally clear-thinking and practical people who have been and continue to be taken in by the so-called Bernie Sanders revolution.

This isn’t original (read it somewhere but can’t remember where, another consequence of those nearly 60 years) but I wholeheartedly agree with it. The 2016 election isn’t about changing the guard, it’s about guarding the change. We changed the guard in 2008. After 8 years of the utter disaster that was Bush/Cheney, the American people were ready for a new direction–a completely different direction–we got that with the historic election of Barack Obama. Now we need a president who can guard the change. Who can first and foremost protect what has been accomplished and, where possible, make some incremental improvements. That isn’t nearly as exciting and sexy as “revolution” but I’ll take it 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

I suppose the appeal of the revolution is that it sounds so good and so simple. Medicare For All, Break Up the Banks, Overturn Citizens United. Yeah buddy, let’s do it. But drill down a little bit and it isn’t quite that good or that simple. Yes, the cost of health care is still a problem, the power of Wall Street is as well, and the influence of money on political campaigns needs to be addressed. But all these are complex and intricate issues which have reached the point they are now over years and even decades. They won’t be fixed with simple slogans and 8 page plans that don’t take into account the ramifications that would ensue should they be enacted.

Medicare For All. Does anybody actually believe that the health care needs of a family of four can be covered for $460 a year and paid for by nothing but a measly 2% increase in income taxes? Doesn’t pass my smell test. The state of Vermont found that out with their attempt to implement single-payer. When pencil met paper the result was closer to a 20 percent tax hike and a doubling of state expenditures.

Abolish private health insurance? What about the millions of Americans who make their living working for them? The private insurers aren’t just the few fat cat CEOs who sit at the top receiving exorbitant compensation. There are millions of Americans who work for not only those companies directly but whose jobs are dependant on their existence. Claims, billing, etc. What happens to them if private health insurance goes away? Does the Sanders plan lay out what happens to them should the “revolution” hit health care, and what would be the effects on the economy as a whole should private health insurance be outlawed? Nope.

The way forward is not to scrap the ACA after only 5 years, but to build on it. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, none of these were perfect originally, neither is the ACA. But it’s damn sure better than what we had before, and in its infancy and with all its shortcomings has helped millions of Americans. To scrap it for a hastily concocted and not well thought out alternative would be foolish.

“For example, to break up the big banks sounds good and well but what happens to the customers of those banks that rely on them for their savings accounts? What about small businesses that rely on those banks for loans? What about homeowners who pay a mortgage through the bank? Are all these accounts then shifted toward community banks? If so, which ones? What if this new bank is far away from someone’s home or business?”

And again, what is the effect on the economy of the break up and the loss of jobs sure to follow? As with the private insurers, these institutions are a significant portion of our economy and encompass more than just the guys at the top who get all the headlines. Lots of jobs for people not named Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein depend on Chase, Bank of America, Citi, et al. What happens to those people?

No, we don’t need to take that risk. Dodd-Frank, despite all its imperfections, is doing its job. Could it be stronger? Absolutely. But gradually and incrementally, as boring as that is, is the only way to proceed, both practically and politically.

Overturn Citizens United. This is a recording, it ain’t that simple. The Supreme Court can’t just take it upon themselves to overturn a standing decision. A case must be brought, in almost every situation, after having gone through years in lower courts. This whole “money is speech” and “corporations are people” mess got started with the Buckley v Valeo decision. In 1976. The rotten fruit of that decision became Citizens United. In 2010. For those keeping score, that’s 34 years. Changing the system will take time and a Supreme Court amenable to hearing and reviewing cases brought before it. We don’t have that now, revolution notwithstanding.

Just to be really blunt, Sanders can’t win in November. I know his supporters like to claim that he polls better against Republican candidates than does Hillary Clinton. Two things about that. One, January polls are about as predictive of November election results as Tarot cards and tea leaves. Two, should Sanders be nominated, and once Republicans settle on a nominee and turn all their blazing guns on Sanders, he will be destroyed by months of negative and yet more negative ads. He will go down and take a lot of people and a lot of progress with him in the process.

We can’t afford to let that happen. Change is hard, change takes time, and nobody waves a magic wand. The way forward is to build on the solid foundation laid by what will be the 8 years of President Obama. Given the two choice facing Democratic primary voters (sorry Martin, but it’s true) Hillary Clinton is the right person for that job.

It’s good to know all the trivial matters before the Congress are taken care of so they can concentrate on the really important stuff:

“House Democrats are once again attempting to do away with Styrofoam products in congressional cafeterias, this time with an amendment to a fiscal 2012 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) introduced an anti-Styrofoam amendment on Wednesday during an Appropriations Committee markup.

[…]

The amendment stipulated that “none of the funds made available in this act may be used to obtain polystyrene products for use in food service facilities of the House.”

“The House of Representatives should serve as a model institution for others to follow,” said Moran. “Eliminating the use of polystyrene in our cafeterias is [the] responsible, environmentally-friendly thing to do but the new Republican House Majority has again made clear they could care less.”

[…]

“This is a case of the Republicans being spiteful and stupid,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) told The Hill in March. “Not only are they harming the environment, they’re taking the Capitol, instead of being an example, back to the Stone Age.”

Cave men had their morning coffee in styrofoam cups? Who knew?

“The amendment is not the first step taken by Moran to rid the House of Styrofoam. In March, he was one of 105 lawmakers to send a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other Republican leaders complaining that the material could cause cancer.”

I can’t for the life of me figure out why congressional approval ratings are so low.

“White House negotiators and congressional Republicans have the outlines of a deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and federal unemployment benefits, which would end a partisan stalemate on Capitol Hill. Under the prospective deal, all the Bush tax cuts would be extended for two years and unemployment benefits would be extended for one, according to congressional sources.”

“Senior Senate Republican aides said that an extension of all the income tax cuts was a foregone conclusion, but that a deal on jobless aid was possible if Democrats agreed to cover the cost.”

So Democrats agree to extend the tax cuts for 2 years in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits–provided the unemployment extension is paid for. No mention of paying for the tax cuts. What great negotiators those Democrats are, huh?

This comes a day after the House Dems take what they admit was a “symbolic” vote on only extending tax cuts for those making under $250,000 (a vote Senate Democrats are expected to take today) so as to make Republicans go on the record as being protectors of the rich—a month after the mid-term elections. A vote they refused to take before the election.

With strategery like that it’s hard to understand why they lost 60+ seats in the House.

“I am opposed to extending any tax breaks for anybody over $250,000, period. That’s where I am,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “I would hope that the president would stand firm on what he campaigned on in Iowa.”

Hold on to that hope, Tom. Personally, I’m hoping to get a pony for Christmas. I think we have equal chances of having those hopes fulfilled.

“…every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave in to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for millionaires…What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party’s single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided — and not getting much help from its president.

Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands. The administration’s strategy is rooted in a fear of what the Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP’s bargaining position.”

If the election results go as expected tonight and Republicans take control of at least the House, the hand-wringing and ‘what happened?’ from the Democratic side of the aisle will commence shortly thereafter. In the search for someone or something to blame I suggest Democrats, including President Obama, need look no further than the nearest mirror. This blurb from Politico pretty much sums up the problem:

“…even White House advisers quietly admit a far more jobs-focused, targeted stimulus would have been more effective as a policy and political tool.”

Ya think? Do ya freakin’ think so? That epiphany comes about 18 months too late, but I guess better late than never. Maybe if the president had listened to someone outside of his inner circle jerk of “advisers” who were saying that from the get-go he wouldn’t be preparing to deal with a Republican Congress in January.

But that wasn’t the only serious misstep that put Obama and the Democrats in the situation in which they find themselves. It goes back to before Inauguration Day of 2009. Beginning when the candidate who said he wanted to change the way business was done in Washington named a poster child of the way business is done in Washington to be his chief of staff.

Then, faced with an economic crisis not seen in this country since the 1930′ s, he named as his chief economic adviser one of the main culprits in creating the conditions that led to the financial meltdown, Larry Summers. He then nominated as his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, a protégé of another architect of the collapse, Robert Rubin. Enjoy your stay at the henhouse, Mr. Fox.

This was the change we could believe in?

When it came to the stimulus package there were a number of economists (outside of that sacred inner circle) who were saying that it needed to be bigger and focused almost entirely on spending to create jobs. They were summarily ignored. An arbitrary figure was arrived at–$1 trillion–which for political purposes the stimulus could not exceed. And in the spirit of bi-partisanship, a good chunk of the package was made to include tax cuts. This was done to supposedly draw Republican support for the stimulus. How did that work out?

Just as an aside here, President Obama later said that he underestimated the size and intensity of the opposition from Republicans in Congress. Was he asleep during the 90’s when Republicans impeached a Democratic president for…well, you know what for. His estimation of the GOP opposition should have been Clinton X 10.

On health care reform, the candidate who ran on a public option and no individual mandate did a sudden 180 and became the president of no public option and an individual mandate. The candidate who promised lower prescription drug prices by way of drug importation from Canada and elsewhere cut a backroom deal with Pharma to insure their monopoly.

Also on health care reform, if the president and Democrats would ask those who supported them in ‘08 (instead of calling them whiners and telling them to buck up) they might find out that just as many, if not more, will tell them too little was done in the way of “reform,” not too much.

The candidate who railed against the Bush “war on terror” constitutional and civil liberties abuses not only continued those policies but now seeks to increase them by expanding the government’s wiretap powers and targeting American citizens who are suspected of terrorist ties for assassination. Not to mention tripling down on the number of troops in Afghanistan, and expanding the drone war and covert operations into Pakistan, Yemen, and only God and the CIA knows where else.

And they wonder why there’s an enthusiasm gap?

Democrats in Congress don’t escape blame either. In two consecutive elections, 2006 and 2008, they were given overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof number in the Senate, plus the White House. Memo to Democrats: American voters didn’t give you those majorities because of your sparkling personalities, they wanted things done.

Just for future reference, if and when you get that kind of power again—use it. Don’t squander it bickering amongst yourselves. Take a page from the Republican playbook and enforce some party discipline. By whatever means necessary. It would help to have a Senate Majority Leader with something resembling a spine. You had the Republican Party down for the count, but you let them up and look at what is about to happen.

“Senate Democrats said Thursday that they had abandoned plans for a pre-election showdown with Republicans over taxes, postponing any vote on extending Bush administration tax cuts until after the November midterms.

Democrats discussed the issue during a caucus luncheon but left the final decision to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)”

That was your first mistake, leaving it up to Sir Robin Harry Reid.

“Late Thursday, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, “We will come back in November and stay in session as long as it takes to get this done.”

Bullshit. If the Republicans take control of Congress, and how can they not with opposition like this, does anybody with half a brain (which excludes Reid) think they’ll be in the mood to make a deal after the election. Here’s what will happen:

“…the GOP is going to shout and scream and throw feces and demand what it will deem one of two acceptable options: a permanent extension of all cuts or a one- or two-year extension. And one of these will pass. And if it’s the temporary extension, the renewal will come up before the very Congress these midterms are going to elect, meaning it will be an even more Republican Congress than the one in the lame-duck session. So the tax cuts for the rich will be made permanent then.”

Meanwhile, back in D.C.:

“The Senate left for the weekend Thursday afternoon and will not return until early next week, when Reid has scheduled a vote on a bill to prevent firms from sending jobs overseas and reward those that bring jobs back to the United States. Congressional leaders are aiming to get lawmakers out on the campaign trail by the end of next week.”

No, don’t go back at all. Slither your worthless invertebrate asses home and stay there. Don’t even come back for the lame-duck session. Get ready for your post-Senatorial careers. At least we can save on the cost of utilities by keeping the Capitol building dark, you useless wastes of space.

This is why Democrats consistently lose the message battle—theirs is not cohesive and it’s too convoluted and complex for non-political junkies to understand. One “senior House leadership aide” tells Talking Points Memo that there won’t be a vote on extension of the Bush tax cuts, another says there may be a vote after all. Make up your mind.

After John Boehner’s alleged “misstep” on Sunday when he said he would vote for an extension that didn’t include those making over $250,000 a year “if that were the only option” it would appear that Democrats have an opportunity to make Boehner put his money where his mouth is, so to speak.

Not so simple when one of those “senior House leadership aides” says Democrats don’t want to “force his hand” by scheduling a vote on the extension, they just want to use it as a campaign issue. Dumb de dumb dumb.

“You don’t need a vote in the House to say the party is blocking tax relief for the middle class – you can just point and say, ‘Look! Senate Republicans blocked it,'” the aide said. “If Republicans killed a tax cut, that could be potentially game changing for Democrats in both chambers.”

Wrong. Here’s where Democrats get too cute by half and get too far into the political weeds with their message. The average voter who doesn’t follow this stuff every day doesn’t know and doesn’t care about how the Bush tax cuts were written by Republicans with an expiration date, and that if they are allowed to expire it will actually be Republicans who have raised taxes.

The average voter doesn’t get, and doesn’t care about, all the intricacies of who did what and why. They don’t know and don’t care about parliamentary procedures and filibusters. They know this—Democrats are in charge of both Houses. If nothing gets passed, taxes go up on everybody. Therefore, Democrats raised their taxes. Nobody wants taxes raised, so throw the bums out, which is the simple to understand Republican message.

If Democrats would use their head, and if they really wanted to take advantage of the apparent “rift” between Boehner and McConnell on this issue (I say apparent because it’s not really a rift, it’s a kabuki dance designed to set a trap which Democrats are stepping into) they would introduce a simple piece of legislation in both Houses. The Bush rates remain in effect for people making under $250,000 and go up for those making over that amount. Make Republicans go on the record as being in favor of tax cuts for rich people, a simple message that everyone can grasp.

A couple of things don’t make sense in this debate over letting the tax cuts for the top 2% expire. Don’t make sense on the surface, that is. Dig a little deeper and it becomes perfectly clear.

Why is there such angst in Congress about raising taxes on the wealthy? Members of both the House and the Senate in both parties say they are so concerned with the deficit, but yet extending the cuts will add about $700 billion to the deficit. Many say raising taxes will kill job creation, but those same cuts led to little or no job creation during the 9 years they have been in effect. So what’s the big deal about raising taxes on millionaires?

Because they would be voting to raise taxes on themselves. One percent of Americans are millionaires, but 44% of the members of Congress are millionaires—237 out of 535. They would be voting not only to raise taxes on themselves, but their friends, their associates, and most importantly to them, the people who write the large campaign contribution checks.

Here’s the other thing that doesn’t appear to make sense. Naturally, most Republicans are against letting the cuts expire, for no other reason than that President Obama is in favor of it. But why are an increasing number of Democrats coming out in favor of an extension? Besides the fact that many if them are included in that number of millionaires, that is.

I know some probably get tired of me beating the drum for the importance of organized labor, but unions were once the largest constituency group and voting bloc who stood up and spoke out for working and middle-class people. Into the “vacuum” left by decreasing union membership and its influence on politicians and policy has stepped corporate interests and their money. From Winner-Take-All Politicsvia Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

“Unions…are the particular focus of business animus. As they decline, they leave a vacuum. There’s no other nationwide organization dedicated to persistently fighting for middle class economic issues and no other nationwide organization that’s able to routinely mobilize working class voters to support or oppose specific federal policies.

With unions in decline and political campaigns becoming ever more expensive, Democrats eventually decide they need to become more business friendly as well. This is a vicious circle: the more unions decline, the more that Democrats turn to corporate funding to survive. There is, in the end, simply no one left who’s fighting for middle class economic issues in a sustained and organized way. Conversely, there are lots of extremely well-funded and determined organizations fighting for the interests of corporations and the rich.”

In my opinion, this also explains why some who vote Republican and support Republican policies, other than those who are simply anti-anything Obama related, are against raising taxes on the wealthy even though very few would be affected by an increase on those making over $250,000 a year. They’ve bought into the corporate-interest saturated media theme that unions are evil and that the wealthy special interests are looking out for them.

“The U.S. economy has been crippled by a financial crisis. The president’s policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high. More action is clearly needed. Yet the public has soured on government activism, and seems poised to deal Democrats a severe defeat in the midterm elections.

[…]

Gallup polling… [a]sked whether government spending should be increased to fight the slump, 63 percent of those polled said no. Asked whether it would be better to increase spending or to cut business taxes, only 15 percent favored spending; 63 percent favored tax cuts.”

The result?

“And the…election was a disaster for the Democrats, who lost 70 seats in the House and seven in the Senate.”

The year was 1938. The president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now here we are again:

“More stimulus is desperately needed, but in the public’s eyes the failure of the initial program to deliver a convincing recovery has discredited government action to create jobs.”

“With just two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks – potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars – to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.”

Good, sound political strategery—let the opposition define the terms of engagement and play into their theme that tax cuts are the prescription for whatever ails the economy. And speaking of political strategery, how the hell is anybody still unclear on this subject?

“If administration officials can agree on a policy path, it is not clear that it would be approved in the current environment on Capitol Hill.”

Aaaaarrrggghhhh!!

Krugman concludes:

“But always remember: this slump can be cured. All it will take is a little bit of intellectual clarity, and a lot of political will. Here’s hoping we find those virtues in the not too distant future.”

How’s that whole ‘unemployed people are lazy bums, repeal financial reform, tax cuts for the wealthy don’t count’ thing workin’ out for ya? Not too good according to Gallup:

“In the same week the U.S. Senate passed a major financial reform bill touted as reining in Wall Street, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans, 49% to 43%, in voters’ generic ballot preferences for the 2010 congressional elections.

The Democrats’ six-point advantage in Gallup Daily interviewing from July 12-18 represents the first statistically significant lead for that party’s candidates since Gallup began weekly tracking of this measure in March.”

A few words of wisdom concerning the mid-terms in November—counteth not thy chickens before they hatcheth.

One vote. That’s all more than 2 million Americans needed to have their unemployment benefits extended. One vote. That’s all that was needed to prevent the unprecedented action by Congress of failing to extend benefits when unemployment is anywhere near our current rate of 9.7%, the previous high being 7.2% in 1983. One vote

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the votes of 57 Democrats, counting his own. He even had the votes of 2 Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. And in the post-January 20, 2009 climate of Washington, D.C. that is a major accomplishment. He needed one vote to get the sixty necessary to break the filibuster and pass the extension before the Senate recessed until July 12. One vote.

Unfortunately, not only for Senator Reid but more importantly for those 2+ million Americans, that one vote was, and is, in the possession of possibly the biggest damn fool ever to occupy space in the Senate chamber, Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Nelson’s reasons for his opposition:

“Tough choices are possible and necessary to not add to the deficit,” Nelson said. “Some also say we need more emergency spending now to keep the recovery going. But in my view it could jeopardize the recovery and would add to our already enormous deficit, likely to be around $1.4 trillion for the second year in a row…. Congress should provide additional unemployment benefits but not as a bailout to the states that worsens the deficit and passes the bills onto our children.”

Do you know who’s making tough choices, you idiot? The long-term unemployed who now have to spend July 4th weekend wondering how, or if, they’ll be able to keep their house, or pay the rent, or keep the lights on. They’re not worried about passing bills on to their children; they’re worried about being able to feed their children.